Data is the basis for making decisions in all areas of the economy. Only in very few cases do the decision makers evaluate the data directly; in most cases, the data must first be processed according to certain specifications. In the area of finance, for example, credit data is used to appraise risks. The corresponding specifications are standardized to some extent. The discussion around the “Basel [Capital] Accord/Basel II,” a planned revision of the international guidelines for appropriate capital endowment of credit institutions, shall be mentioned here as representative. In addition, the Federal Authority for the Supervision of Banks (BAKred) has jurisdiction over these affairs in the Federal Republic of Germany.
The data to be processed is considered below as matrices (working tables) having rows and columns, where one row corresponds to one data record (DS). The computer system implements the matrices in a known manner. The processing method and processing program control the computer system to calculate a characteristic function according to the specifications. The calculated characteristic function shows the dependence of a first variable on a second variable. In the simplified case, the characteristic function is reduced to individual characteristic values. To continue with the finance example, the characteristic function may describe the loss (on the order of billions of euros, ) to be expected from credit portfolio transactions in the extreme case. More precisely, the characteristic function may indicate the probability (e.g., 99%) that this loss will not be exceeded. The calculations are usually based on one year.
Technical restrictions are determined by resources, computation time and accuracy. In other words, available computer systems must calculate the characteristic function with sufficient accuracy within a specified period of time (requirements).
Additional restrictions are based on the division of labor between the software manufacturer (e.g., SAP AG, Walldorf, Germany) and the user (e.g., a financial institution). First, the manufacturer must take into account public requirements (cf. Basel). Second, the manufacturer must not disclose application-specific specifications to the user's competitors. In other words, the user retains his data processing model (e.g., portfolio model) as a trade secret. The processing programs must therefore have technical interfaces with which the user can program functions without having to rely on the manufacturer (“customizing,” “user exits”).
In order to meet these and other requirements, the following technical objects are derived, namely: shortening the computation time while achieving sufficient accuracy (TIME); reducing the size of system resources (memory and bandwidth) necessary for the calculation (RESOURCES); establishing the sequence of processing steps (SEQUENCE); testing the accuracy of the processing steps before and after their execution (TESTING); taking into account changes in the original matrix, which occur during the calculation (CHANGES); and setting up interfaces for defining and specifying processing steps (INTERFACES).